Searchers
by AngelaRB
Summary: Did you ever wonder what happened immediately after the events at the end of Hotel Dusk? Well, I did and here's my take on it.


Too many thoughts to count were racing through Kyle Hyde's mind during his long drive home. He'd just spent the longest night of his life in that fleabag dump, he felt like he'd gotten all of twenty minutes of sleep, and to make things even more interesting, he had company.

Hyde looked over at the sleeping kid in the passenger's seat and barely held in an exhausted sigh. As much as he liked to play the role of the unfeeling hardass, Mila was impossible to not feel at least a twinge of pity toward.

Hyde thought for a moment. Yeah, every person that he'd met that night in the hotel, himself included, had gone through hard times. Every one of them had experienced heartbreaking loss, unbelievable stress, and hardships that would make the average person crack up and do something crazy. Hell, some of them HAD done some crazy things.

Mila's case was a unique one because she'd lost over half of her life as she slept in a hospital bed for ten years. She was probably pushing twenty years old, and she'd lost the chance to be a teenager. Mila would never go out on her first awkward date with some boneheaded high school moron (Hyde figured that was actually a good thing, but you couldn't have convinced him of that when he was a boneheaded moron of a teenager himself, so he brushed that thought aside), she'd never go to her senior prom, go on reckless adventures to the beach during math class, have that first terrifying driving lesson with her pop, or a million other things. It was eating Hyde up that Mila simply didn't have a choice in the matter, and it was damn unfair.

He had no idea why he'd allowed her to come along and was mentally kicking his own ass for doing it, but if he'd had the choice to make once more he would have invited her into the car again.

At that moment, the sun became a bit too bright for Mila's closed eyes and she stirred awake. She rubbed her eyes and gasped at the brightness of the oncoming desert sun reflecting off of the windshield.

Hyde pointed toward the glove compartment, "They'll be a little big on you, but there are some sunglasses in there if you want them."

"Oh." Mila opened the compartment and pulled out Hyde's shades. She slipped them on her face, and Hyde couldn't help but grin a little as she could barely keep them up on the end of her nose. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Mr. Hyde?"

"Kyle."

Mila quickly looked over at him, and she caught the glasses midair as they flew off of her face. "Oh!" She slipped them back on and balanced them on her face with one finger. "I'm sorry. But it's really okay if I call you Kyle? I was always taught that I was to speak to my elders with respect, and Mr. Hyde is the respectful way of speaking to you."

_Yeah, this kid definitely never learned how to be a teenager. _"I'm not that old. I'm just thirty-two. I won't tell anyone if you don't, eh?"

"Well..." Mila seemed to be having a real dilemma over whether it was proper to call Hyde by his first name. "I suppose so... Kyle."

"That's better." Hyde paused for a moment and decided that it was time to get serious. "Listen, Mila... What made you want to come with me? I gotta say that was unexpected."

Mila didn't even pause to think. "Because you're like me, Mr. Hy-Kyle. Ummm. Sorry. Anyway, Kyle... I wanted to come with you because you're like me. From what you said there in Mr. Dunning's room, we're both trying to solve a mystery that is driving us both a little crazy. If I'd stayed there with Ms. Rosa and Louis, as nice as they both are, my search would have to stop. I don't plan on stopping until I find my papa."

_Kid, I have no doubt of that. I just hope that whatever you find isn't too much for you to handle. _"Well, I guess that makes sense." Hyde decided to try to lighten things up a bit. "We should be in town in about an hour or so. Say, how did you make it all the way out to the Dusk anyway? It must have taken you a long time."

"I walked, mainly." Mila pointed out her simple little black shoes, and for the first time, Kyle noticed that they were nearly worn out and they had holes in them. "I'd walk until I got tired, go into a diner and sit there until someone felt sorry for me and passed me a piece of pie or a sandwich, then find a soft place to sleep outside where I could be safe from anyone noticing me. Every so often I'd get a ride from an old lady who was driving to church or to her grand children's house, but I liked walking. It gave me time to think."

That surprised the hell out of Hyde. In any big city the police would have been on her like flies on old meat. "How'd you avoid getting picked up by the cops? Didn't folks ask why you were there looking all tired and hungry?"

"Sure. People would ask me if I was waiting for someone or if I was lost all the time. I'd just..." Mila put her head on the passenger's side window of the car and looked like a miserable little girl who had just broken her favorite doll for a moment. "I'd just lie to them. I'd say that I was waiting for my mother to pick me up or that my car was being fixed at a nearby repair shop. I'd tell them that I had a long time to wait, and then they'd feel sorry for me and buy me food. I felt awful and like a dirty liar!"

She took of the sunglasses, and Hyde could see tears actually well up in Mila's eyes. He could handle just bout anything, but the sight of a crying female always turned him into a dumbstruck mess. "Hey! Mila... Don't do that. I know you've missed a lot while you were in the hospital. One of the things you'll learn sooner or later is that sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do in order to survive. If you'd told a random stranger your story, there's a good chance they would have called the cops and you'd never made it to the Dusk. You never would have learned what you did last night about your pop, and you would have had to keep wondering _what if._ You were smart, you survived, and you made it. Pretty damn admirable for a girl who was asleep for ten years..."

"Really?" Mila wiped her tears away and forced a slight, pained smile.

"Yeah. Really." _You gotta lighten up the mood, Hyde. _"I imagine you were happy to get a ride from that kid Jeff since you were so close to the hotel after all that walkin'."

Mila laughed a little and shrugged, "Oh, sure. He looked at me kind of funny, but I was happy to hear that he was going to the hotel and he was willing to take me along." Mila gleefully pointed to a diner and a gas station that was on their right as they passed. "Oh! I slept on the bench behind the tire store! That was fun."

"Hah!" Hyde shook his head like a flabbergasted father. "I'm afraid I can't offer you a comfortable bench, but I can offer you a pretty nice sofa bed. It's softer than my own bed, even. What do you say? I figured I'd head home to Long Beach for a day or two to get my head on straight, then we can figure out the next step. Sound good?"

Mila smiled and clapped her hands with even more gleeful joy than she expressed when she saw her old bench bed. "That sounds great! Mr. Hyde-"

"Kyle."

"Kyle! I'm sorry. Kyle, I do have a plan that I've been wanting to do since I left the hospital, but I had no way of doing it all alone. It'll be a little difficult if I ever get the chance..."

_Is the kiddo thinking of doing something shady? _"What kind of plan is that?"

"It's a little bit hard to explain. I'll just have to show you when you get the chance to help me. I think this may help in your search for your friend too! Will you help me?"

Hyde actually had a moment of hesitation and thought about the beach, beer, and bikini girls he'd miss for the next couple of weeks, but all he had to hear was that this kid's idea may lead him to Bradley after all and he had to learn more. "Sure. I'll help." Hyde looked out at the long road ahead and rubbed his tired, bloodshot eyes. "We're getting close." As soon as it came out of his mouth, Hyde didn't know if he meant that as they were getting close to the city or they were getting close to _something_. He'd learned more after one night at Hotel Dusk than he had in the past three years of searching for Bradley, and the fact that he actually had something to go on was thrilling. Yeah, he'd help Mila because Mila was going to help him. Bradley and her pop were connected, and whoever they found first would be a major link to the still missing person. "Say, remind me when we get into town... You need some damn shoes, kid. I ain't gonna be stopping at any Gucci or whatever kind of expensive Ucci or Acci shoes are popular nowadays, but we can get you something practical."

Mila took of Hyde's sunglasses and put them back in the glove compartment. "What's a Gucci?"

"We're gonna get along just fine, Mila."

Please note that I wrote this on a whim and I don't even know when I'll continue it. If I get good feedback I'll play around with it some more and add more chapters. I just finished the game this evening and I can't sleep, and this is the kind of thing I do when I'm tired. : )


End file.
